Marietta, GA – Knowledge, and Education

A note from an old college friend #DarrenKorn reminded me of an interview of Father Malichi Martin where he said the purpose of education is to 1. Learn critical thinking and 2. Communicate effectively.

With these 2 learned skills, a person can gain the knowledge to change themselves and the world. Without these skills, students are just attending school. That’s why the primary grades are so critically important. Our civilization’s future, and especially our economy, depends on an educated workforce.

Are we as a society teaching our children to think critically and then put those thoughts and ideas into words both written and spoken?

If you’re successful today, thank a parent, teacher or mentor who taught you how to think and act in a way that improved your mind.

NOTE: In 2016, the budget for the US Dept of Education was $68B. That’s $170,000,000 per Federal DOE employee. We can then add the annual budgets for the state and local school systems, colleges, universities and trade schools.

#EncourageExcellence

Bryan

Marietta, GA – The Law of Attraction.

I’m not a huge fan of the Law of Attraction because the motivational speakers and feel good authors seem to only have the formula half right when they tell you that you can have anything you want or become the richest man or date the prettiest girl all by just sitting quietly and thinking it so and causing it to magically appear like a wish from a genie.

What about the second half of the word “attraction” which is “action“? You have to be willing to act on your thoughts and prepare the plans, be single-minded and work hard. Nothing just happens. Didn’t Newton say that an object at rest remains at rest until some type of energy is applied?

Well, I think an idea just “rests” in your mind until you act on it. Filling your mind with good thoughts stimulate you to act positively and toward good results. Conversely, filling your mind with negative thoughts will produce poor activities.

Lastly, let me leave you with a quote from someone much more esteemed than me, who also thought about these things in the 19th century… 

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” Henry David Thoreau

#EncourageExcellence

Bryan

Cincinnati, OH – My thoughts on the Perfect Manager.

We have all had good managers and probably bad managers during our careers. Four traits that I believe make the perfect manager:

1.- Character – Trust that the managers will do the right thing permeates through the entire organization, always. Bad character on the other hand, encourages bad behavior.

2.- Confidence – The leaders that exude confidence and not arrogance always get the best performance. Confidence is contagious.

3.- Competence – The best managers walk alongside their team and look for ways to improve processes and results while giving credit to key contributors.

4.- Charisma – Being positive and encouraging is the wrapper that encapsulates the entire package of the perfect manager!

Let me know your thoughts and ideas.  I appreciate the feedback.

#EncourageExcellence

Bryan

Marietta, GA – Personal 100 year plan

The Japanese companies develop 100-year succession plans and we should too. When you have children, you begin to realize that the world is more than just us and our tiny footprint that we take up on earth. We become less selfish and think about the big picture. Or at least we should think about why being a contributor is more important than being a consumer of the many blessings we have been given.

Reading George Friedman and his ideas on the next 100 years got me thinking that we should develop a personal 100-year plan. We will probably not be alive in 100 years but we can develop the foundation that our children and our children’s children will inherit when we are gone.

Take some quiet time and carefully think about what you would like to be remembered for in 100 years when your family has a reunion.

What would you like to leave for them to remember you for?

Many famous families create private offices to manage wealth for the next generation and beyond. As a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) I have been taught to give my children a good education and the resources to contribute to our society and not only be a consumer of material things.

Thank you for the great comments and feedback that I have been getting.

#EncourageExcellence
Bryan

Marietta, GA – “Edit your future” today.

I wrote about incrementalism a while ago and was talking to a friend about fxReputation.com and why our online reputation is becoming so important today.  When I say, “Edit your future” I mean to take actions today to build and polish your personal brand before we become known for our social score and digital footprint.  Carefully make personal choices that will increase your personal brand rather than detract from the hard work you have done to become an influencer.  Choose your daily actions and decisions carefully.

We need to understand that our actions can live on in cyberspace whether we want them to or not.  When we post, paste, or vent on social media it becomes a permanent part of our reputation.  We have read about athletes and actors who have posted immature and inappropriate things on Twitter only to see them resurface years later when they have gone on to become successful.

We need to understand that our choices today affect our personal lives tomorrow. Editing your future!

The Chinese government has implemented a social scoring system what will eventually come to the US.  Not only will our social media activity be collected, stored and analyzed but our credit scores, civil records, educational accomplishments, and professional activities will be available to big data algorithms that will stack rank us against our peers and neighbors.  Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

#EncourageExcellence

Bryan

Senior managers often have to make hard choices when it comes to staffing levels and meeting company goals and objectives.

The question that I asked myself when doing reviews is, “Is this employee a net consumer or contributor?”

Does the employee contribute to the bottom line more than he or she consumes? If an employee is honest, he will know whether or not he helps to contribute revenue and gross margin at a higher level than his salary and benefits cost the organization.

Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself the same question.  You cannot be net neutral.  If you think you are, then you are costing the company more than you are worth.

#EncourgEnlightenment

To your success,

Bryan

When we develop good habits, it conditions our thinking to do things in a certain way to get the positive outcomes that we want or expect.

Incrementalism shows us that doing things with purpose encourages good practices which tend to cause things to continue to get better. Making small decisions well every day propel us forward.  If the flywheel slows, it eventually stops and we begin slipping backward.

Jim Collins talks about this in his book, Good to Great; “The Flywheel and the Doom Loop”.

It’s a great book that’s required reading for executives and entrepreneurs.

“No matter how dramatic the end result, good-to-great transformations never happen in one fell swoop. Rather, the process resembles relentlessly pushing a giant, heavy flywheel, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond”.

You have to LOVE THE PROCESS!

#EncourgEnlightenment

To your success,

Bryan Wilson